More Spinning

I've been spinning more yarns for my story coat.   I'm sure once I get knitting, I'll find some yarns won't work and I'll need to spin more, although I'm also hoping to find more coordinates in my yarn stash.  (Photography isn't doing most of them justice, as the colors only seem true when the flash goes off. )  Here are my newest skeins:

Last time you saw this yarn, it was just a single wound on my bobbin, but now it has been Navajo plied (chain plied) and simultaneously wound with bamboo yarn that I strung beads on.   I occasionally pushed a bead up into place and found this to be the most difficult method of adding beads to yarn that I have tried so far, although the final yarn is beautiful, and more green than this picture.  The fiber is Ashford's merino silk in the Woodland colorway.

These next two skeins are spun from similar braids of merino wool that were purchased from the Yarn Wench several years ago in the dappled shade colorway.  Their color is really a deeper teal / green, but my camera seems to be washing out color when the flash doesn't go off, which seems weird to me and I'll have to figure out when I get time. This first one was Navajo plied:

For the second braid, I spun a thick and thin single, then plied it with Jaggerspun Zephyr wool / silk (laceweight) yarn to make yarn with beehives.  This yarn is much more time consuming to spin and ply, but I think it is a beautiful art yarn that will add some variety.

I happen to have four braids of this Poetry colorway of Faulkland wool from the Yarn Wench, and have decided to spin and Navajo ply all of them for a three-ply yarn that can be used throughout the coat.  This skein was finished yesterday, and I'm in progress of spinning the next braid.

I know these don't look like they will play nicely together, but the earlier skeins were dark blue/ teal / purples, and this last skein has purples in it, so I'm hoping I'll find other yarns (or roving that I can spin up) that will help them work together.  Whatever doesn't end up in the coat can always be knit up into something else...

Snow Outside, Creativity Inside

Over the past few days, we've gone from this:

to this:

We've shoveled snow (it doesn't look like it, since more came down) and endured two power failures.  So what does one do when there is no power?  Well, my knitting ran into a little snag, so I decided to spin some yarns for a project I'd like to start soon.

First, I finished plying this teal/ blue / white skein:

Next, I corespun (wool wrapped around a thin, premade yarn) a beautiful aqua and multicolor batt into this yarn:

Wanting to try something new, I spun a thick and thin single while letting multicolored thread autowrap around it.

That was fun, but I've seen beautiful yarns with beads, I had to try making one, so I spun up more fiber.  Left to right:  blue / violet / black batt, Ashford Damson Slyver, Ashford Woodland Slyver.

The first skein was multistranded.  I plyed the two blue-violet strands with three different quilting / embroidery threads, one being pre-strung with beads, which I skattered throughout the skein.  The metallic thread made it a bit scratchy, but added sparkle, along with the beads and it's beautiful!

I decided to try threading the beads directly onto the strand that was made from the batt, but only managed to ply a small sample skein before the yarn broke and beads flew everywhere!

Having more yarn to ply, I decided to blend the two blue-violet strands with a black lace-weight bamboo yarn and threaded the beads on it.  It worked well, with the black bamboo yarn darkening the skein, but only a little.

More experiments to come as I have time...

Black Bunny Hanspun

Earlier in the week I finished spinning my shipment from the Black Bunny fiber club. The color is called Spellbound, and after much thought, I decided that I would spin reasonably thin singles, and then try Navaho plying to try for a DK or Worsted weight. The fiber arrived looking like this:

and has now turned into this lovely, 3-ply yarn, which I'm guessing to be around the DK / Worsted that I was hoping for. I haven't measured the yardage, or WPI yet, as I'll do that when I wind it into a ball. Right now, I'm thinking a scarf, maybe the drop stitch scarf pattern that I saw in Spin-Off Magazine.